Katie Melua: a girl in a whirl

THE past few months have been a whirlwind of success stories for Katie Melua. The young singer-songwriter has gone from being a complete unknown to the UK's brightest new talent, after scoring a No 1 with her debut album, Call Off The Search.

THE past few months have been a whirlwind of success stories for Katie Melua.

The young singer-songwriter has gone from being a complete unknown to the UK's brightest new talent, after scoring a No 1 with her debut album, Call Off The Search.

That success followed a Top 10 hit with her debut single, the smoky love song, The Closest Thing To Crazy, all helped along by some of the most excited music industry buzz to surround a new artist for some time.

Not bad for a girl who grew up in Georgia, a country which used to form part of the USSR, and is not best known for its pop star output.

Melua spent her formative years there before living in Belfast for five years as a teenager, so was always used to living under political instability.

But she says she was completely unaffected by the conflicts that were going on in the lands of her childhood.

"I had a great childhood,'' says the 19-year-old. "I mean, obviously it was a bit unstable in the early nineties in Georgia, and I do remember a bit of that. I remember hearing gunshots and being very scared.

"And there were things like the electricity supply failing in the winter, or having no hot water.

"Sometimes, I'd have to go downstairs and fill up my bucket with water from the tap in the yard.

"But it's all relative, really. Until you come over here and learn a different lifestyle, you don't realise how bad that was. And none of these things affected me because adults don't really tell you what's going on.

"It's something that happened, and obviously it affected my family hugely, but they never related that worry to me.''

Melua moved to Belfast when she was nine. Her father, a heart surgeon, had found a new job there and took his wife, a nurse, Melua and her younger brother with him.

More by accident than design, she found herself at an all-girls Roman Catholic school, while her brother went to a Protestant school, but she says neither of them experienced any problems.

"I think it's possible, in places like Georgia and Belfast, to have a good life,'' she says. "People do have good lives there. The average person will not encounter anything bad in Georgia or Belfast, unless, obviously, they're directly involved in what's going on.''

Success

Melua and her family again upped sticks when she was 14, due to her father's job, and the budding singer found herself in south London. She'd always sung from a young age "as a kind of hobby'' but, beyond getting singing lessons, had never dared think she might have any success at it.

Instead, she dreamed about becoming a politician. "It's one of those mad things you want to be when you're young,'' she laughs - but, in London, she began to think that she could make a career out of her voice. "Singing has always been the constant in my life, having moved around a lot,'' she says.

"But it was only four years ago I decided I could do it as a career. Before, I never knew if it was possible. I'd come from Georgia where the chances of succeeding are very small, but then I realised maybe I did have a chance.''

At 16, Melua went to a school for performing arts, where she met her boyfriend of two years, musician Luke Pritchard. She studied music at A-level, but she was to get her big break long before she sat her exams.

Mike Batt, the composer most famous for The Wombles hits, advertised at the school for a blues and jazz singer, and Melua entered the auditions. Batt was entranced by her vocals, saying since that he, "never expected to find someone unique''.

They immediately began working together and found it a prolific relationship. "Throughout the year, we recorded a lot of songs,'' says Melua.

"We found we had a choice of going a jazzier way, a much more bluesy way or going for a rocky sound. In the end, we settled for a mixture of those, and I think it's worked really well.''

Melua left the school last summer, not long before her album was released, and, thanks to her success, she's not had to worry about finding a ``proper'' job. But, despite her quick rise to fame, the singer says she doesn't feel like an overnight success.

"Well, it hasn't really happened that fast,'' she says. "Everything that's happened is really exciting, but it's been quite a long process for me. I worked most nights on the album for nearly a year and a half.

"The album has been out since last November and has been slowly climbing, so it hasn't been like an overnight thing.

"But it's good the way it has happened. It just doesn't feel very real. I don't think it has sunk in yet.''

Katie Melua performs at The Lowry on Sunday, March 7. Tickets are sold out.